Politics and the Arts: Towards New Landscapes of the Possible

In a time of political, economic, financial and social constraints and an ostensible shortage of political alternatives, the Standing Group on Politics and the Arts wishes to explore the capacity of the arts to contribute to what Rancière calls a ‘new landscape of the possible’. To this end, we invite papers engaging with the capacity of the arts to ‘sketch new configurations of what can be seen, what can be said, and what can be thought’ and thus what can be done. Contrary to Rancière in the above quotations, we are not only interested in images of art but also in other artistic genres including both the relationship between different artistic genres and the question of multi-sensory reception. Furthermore, we welcome papers on the relationship between art and political activism, as well as papers on what Love and Mattern call ‘a performative aesthetic’ where artists engage with a wider political community. Panels may, for example, discuss the connection of art with resistance, reconciliation or social transformation or its capacity to empower marginalised groups of people, to produce new knowledge or to engage with open or structural violence. As always, the Standing Group encourages forms of presenting/performing papers other than standard academic presentations including, but not limited to, presentations that engage the audience with multi-sensory forms of reception.